'Race-hate' gang beats Muslim to brink of death

A Muslim pensioner was on the brink of death Sunday night after an appalling race-hate attack by a gang of schoolboys in southwest London, reports Daily Mail. Retired care worker Ekram Haque, 67, was battered to the ground in front of his three-year- old granddaughter Marian. Doctors have told his family he has no chance of survival. Sunday night he was on a ventilator as friends and relatives paid their last respects. Police are linking the attack to other assaults on elderly Asians. The attackers, who were black and wore hooded tops, are believed to be as young as 12. Ekram Haque, a devout Muslim, was ambushed as he left his local mosque in Tooting, South-West London, where he had been attending evening prayers. As he and Marian waited for a lift, the gang ran up behind him and clubbed him around the head. Two other namazis chased the thugs away but Ekram - described by friends as a 'gentle giant - had suffered horrific head injuries. His granddaughter has been left 'very shaken and disturbed, said her father, Ekrams son Arfan. Graphic images of the attack were caught on CCTV. Although Ekram has not been officially declared dead, murder squad detectives have already begun investigating the attacks on him and four other Asians. Three of the earlier victims were also pensioners. As local community tensions grew, police stepped up patrols near the Idara E Jaaferiya mosque where Ekram was attacked last Monday. Scotland Yard confirmed that the assault was being treated as ' racially motivated. Ekrams 35-year-old son, a consumer law advisor, described the attack on his father as ' mindless violence but urged people to remain calm. Ekram Haque was born in Calcutta and moved to Belfast in search of work in 1972. He met his wife there and they moved to London in the early 1980s. At the time of the attack, he was making final preparations to take her to Pakistan and Australia on holiday. Arfan said: My father loved living in Britain. He considered himself a Londoner. He was enjoying his retirement and seeing a lot of his granddaughter. He was a kind, loving person, who always went out of his way to support anyone who needed support. I just want justice. Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, from Scotland Yards homicide and serious crime command, said: We urge people who may have been attacked, or who may know who these youths are, to come forward.